tenaciousJay wrote:
1. (Most important) Will building up over a radiant heat floor damage the heating system in any way? Overload the capacity of the boiler? Cause giant tidal waves to crash into New York?
Jay,
Building up over this will not cause any overload or damage to the system.
2. Will affect the heating of the rest of the house?
No it will not.
3. Can it also heat the studio area?
No - if you cover it over the way you have discussed it will not be able to heat the studio - it won't work through an additional deck assembly.
4. (Least important) Will I be losing heating efficiency, paying extra $ for heating? (becomes more and more important the more money I'm wasting)
Yes - and i will explain that below.
If the slab is warm, it heats the rest of the basement even if it's not getting into the studio rooms (question #2). I would also think that it wouldn't tax the boiler; the water would just return through the loop hotter than it would've if it had a cold room to shed the heat to (question #1).
Nope - this is why it will cost you more money.
The entire area will just waste heat - it won't travel to the outlying areas - this because to do so it would have to change the laws of physics.
Heat doesn't travel to colder areas - it is cold that invades heat......... That's why ice cubes freeze from the outside in - and human beings the same way.
So there is no way for this heated slab to spread out that energy in order to heat the surrounding cooler slab. (the surrounding slabds are cooler because they immeadiately lose heat through radiation - they aren't covered by anything keeping the warm longer).
If you trap the heat by constructing the isolated floor - all you will do is make the ground under the slab a little warmer a little deeper than normal (and that only for a very short time - see below for more info on how the system works with higher than expected return water temps) - but ALL OF THE ENERGY SPENT TO HEAT THE SLAB BELOW THE FLOOR WILL BE WASTED ENERGY. And then - you will still have to spend the money again - in one form or another - to heat the space above that deck area - and thus - your energy costs will have to rise.
I think so, or at least not losing money (question #4), because that hotter water will get combined with the other water and re-circulated around the basement (possibly the whole house), heating the areas that aren't built over. So that is heat that doesn't need to be generated.
Nope - that is heat that has ALREADY BEEN GENERATED THAT IS LOST IN THE GROUND - THE REMAINDER OF THE HOUSE GAINS NO BENEFIT FROM IT.
So if it's not possible (question #3) to heat the studio from underneath this way, then the heat will still permeate the entire slab and warm the rest of the basement (and somewhat rise to the upstairs as well), right? And any hot water still gets circulated to the rest of the basement. And as long as the thermostat isn't in the studio it won't keep trying to heat an area that is cooler than the rest of the basement.
Again - refer to the answer above - what is lost under the new floor is lost - it will contribute to nothing. And if it is on the same loop as the rest of the basement and thus raises the return temp of the water - that will only make the automatic mixing valve - which wants the water temp to be a constant set degree - sensing it's higher - to add return water to the mix in order to lower the water temperature which will (in turn) cause the remaining area to heat more slowly,,,,, these systems are very tricky.
And if the room above is heated through some secondary method - ventilation to the room next door with a fireplace or even a space heater (not to mention tube amps), won't that also slow the heat loss from the slab?
Nope - not in the least............. the room above - once you finish the isolation you require for this - will never come into play for this room.
But that heat will still be used in the rest of the basement I think (see above answer). Maybe there will be some waste but in my mind in won't be significant; it's not like I'm running the pipe outside where it heats nothing and the water comes back around cold.
Not outside where it heats nothing - rather - inside where it heats nothing.
Nothing is nothing - no matter where it's located.
The pipes are embedded in the concrete slab; I don't think I want to try to move them.
I am not talking about moving them. Before they enter the slab they are connected to a small manifold - and if you disconnect them from that - you could install a new loop for your elevated deck. They aren't removed - just temporarily abandoned in place.
Understand that with these systems each loop handles a relatively small area - and you can possible isolate the area under your new floor - and if you then install new piping in that new floor - your heating costs would then go down.
This because the amount of heat required to maintain your studio will be less (due to the super insulating value of the isolated construction).
I figured the boiler/radiant heat dude (supposedly the expert around here) would be able to tell me if I would be putting too much of a load on my system (question #1) and give me more info than my inspector because he deals with this stuff all the time.
You can't put any more load on your system unless you expand the heating area with the system. Covering up the system does not increase the load - it simply creates wasted energy due to that which doesn't heat the house.
Rod
